


My Father, Who Burned Me

by Biggest_Oof



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bisexual Zuko (Avatar), Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Zuko (Avatar) Needs Therapy, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, some zukki and mailee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28425105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Biggest_Oof/pseuds/Biggest_Oof
Summary: The first time he feels the back of his father's hand, he is five and has failed to produce a flame one too many times. Azula had come upon her inner fire weeks ago, toddling on surprisingly steady feet with hands cupping a bright red flame. The sages called her a miracle from Agni. To have the first flame at only three is a marking of a prodigy. Zuko is no prodigy, is lucky to be born, and his father tells him so, as he whips his hand across Zuko’s cheek.Or:Zuko is lucky to be born. Life seems to constantly remind him of the fact.
Relationships: Jet/Zuko (Avatar), Ozai & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 105





	My Father, Who Burned Me

The first time he feels the back of his father's hand, he is five and has failed to produce a flame one too many times. Azula had come upon her inner fire weeks ago, toddling on surprisingly steady feet with hands cupping a bright red flame. The sages called her a miracle from Agni. To have the first flame at only three is a marking of a prodigy. Zuko is no prodigy, is lucky to be born, and his father tells him so, as he whips his hand across Zuko’s cheek.

The second time is only a year later. He has finally started firebending (too late, not lucky, not like Azula), to the relief of both him and his mother. But then the katas start, and he fumbles, his hands and feet disobeying his mind, and Zuko’s limbs spit him on to hard stone. Ozai is watching. His eyes are cold, but his hand is warm, too warm, as it grips around his tiny wrist and burns. The next day, Zuko completes the kata successfully for the first time.

There are so many instances, so many handprints and bruises and falls from trees. The guards and servants look at him with sad eyes, but do nothing (cando nothing except sneak him burn salves when Prince Ozai’s back is turned). Even Grandfather gives him strange looks when he thinks Zuko isn’t paying attention. Once, Lu Ten sees a bruise when Zuko’s sleeve shifts unexpectedly. His face morphs into anger.

“Who did that to you?”

“I fell from the roof. You know I like to climb.”

“Zuko....it’s shaped like a fist.”

“I accidentally hit myself breaking my fall.” Zuko knows he rambles when he lies, and he is lying now. “You know, because I fell. From the roof. Because I’m clumsy, and-“

“Zuko, it’s fine, I believe you.” Lu Ten doesn’t believe him, Zuko knows, but he’s too relieved to care because his cousin doesn’t know that his father hits him, that his father doesn’t love him the way mom loves him, because mom loves him with lullabies and turtle ducks, not lessons in war and mantras on weakness.

The next week, Uncle convinces his grandfather to train with Lu Ten at Piando’s place in Shu Jing. Father scoffs, like he always does, but the Firelord has agreed to Zuko’s training, so in a few days Zuko is far, far away from hands who show him how to burn.  
-  
Piandao likes him. He doesn’t show it through obvious ways, but Zuko’s used to kindness coming in subtlety, if at all. It’s in the way Piandao nods along to his rambling stories, the way he looks in quiet approval at Zuko’s calligraphy, and the sheer awe in his face when Zuko picks up the dual dao and dances.

He hears a conversation between Uncle and Piandao when he is supposed to be asleep, tucked in the beams of the high ceiling in the lounge area.

“-wouldn’t believe his ability with those swords, Iroh. He beat Fat today. That boy is seven years old and he had him pinned between his dao in minutes, Iroh, minutes.”

“Are you sure that is my nephew you speak of, old friend? As you said, Zuko is only seven, and yet you speak of him as if he is a hardened admiral.” Uncle sounds amused, like he sounds when humoring Lu Ten.

“I’m dead serious. That boy is a prodigy. Come see him at sparring tomorrow. You’ll believe me soon enough.”

Prodigy.

He’s a prodigy.

Zuko falls asleep that night glowing, elated at the idea that he could be anything other than a failure.  
-  
The final time he feels him father’s hand, he is kneeling, begging for mercy in front of hundreds of people his father commands. He had just wanted to do what was best for his people, and he has ended up here, prostrating and apologizing and showing weakness. His father cups his face, caresses it. Zuko feels streams of sticky sweet relief flow through his body as he leans into Father’s hand.

His palm is warm, and then it gets hotter, and his other hand is in his phoenix tail, holding him, pinning him to the burning sensation, and Zuko screams until his lungs give out, his voice gives out, his body shuddering from adrenaline and shock. In his blurry peripheral, he sees Father retreat and Uncle emerge from the crowd, and then everything blacks out.

He doesn’t wake up for a month. When he finally opens his red rimmed eyelids, the first thing he does is plead for mercy. He does not receive it, did not receive it. He is banished. He is branded. And he is to capture the Avatar or never return to his nation. Uncle can’t look in him in the eyes for another month after that.  
-  
(What nobody knows is that both Azula and Father visited him in the sickbay before he had left Fire Nation territory. His father came at night, watched his son’s breaths, and the candles that rose in time with them. Ozai was not a kind man, and loved nothing except power, but in this moment he could not bring himself to kill Zuko, as he had set out to do.

No, instead of smothering his pitiful excuse for a son with the pillows stacked in a spare closet, Ozai watched. His son, barely visible underneath all the gauze on his flushed face, still looked like him. Azula had always resembled Ursa, just another reason he favored her, but no. His son’s nose was his, and so were his eyes, lips, and bone structure. He had crushed this feeble weevil worm into ash, and yet, Ozai’s face was still there. The Firelord scoffed once more and melted into the night.

visited Zuko in the day before his departure. She had smiled and cheered at poor Zuzu’s farce of an Agni Kai, but that was less from excitement and more from the relief that she was not the one who’s face was being melted. She still loved her brother, even if she showed it through small burns on his arms and rat vipers under his bed.

“I’m sorry Zuzu, but you had to know this was coming sooner or later” she whispered into his freshly sheared head. “It’s better that you’re not going to be here. You won’t get hurt anymore, even if you are a disappointment. It’s not like you’ll actually find the Avatar.”

She couldn’t say she loved him. But she did kiss his head the way Ursa used to, and told his unconscious body that she wouldn’t think of him. From Azula, that was practically a declaration of the fact.)  
-  
The Avatar is a child. He can’t be more than twelve, and his companions no more than fifteen. They are children. But as Uncle reminds him, so is Zuko. It doesn’t feel like it. Those three, imbeciles as they are, looked hopeful. That is the mark of a child. Zuko hasn’t been hopeful since the Agni Kai.

So he tracks these children across the world. It’s not easy, not with idiots like Zhao and nuisances like Uncle, who sidetrack him to restock their White Lotus pai sho tile. Seriously, Uncle, what was that. Zuko doesn’t drink any of his tea for a week until Iroh apologizes.

While he tracks the children and avoids numerous obstacles, Zuko also repeatedly gets his ass handed to him by: a waterbender who can’t waterbend, a sidekick with an inferiority complex, and a twelve year old air nomad who doesn’t believe in violence.

It’s not very ideal.

Every loss is another testament of how much of a failure he is. But he has to get home. The one advantage Zuko has in this race with Zhao is desperation. His father will love him, and he’ll be Crown Prince again, and he won’t have to think about the burns that litter his body like rivers on a map.

And then, the storm hits. Jee has the gall to lecture him on respect. His scar hurts, it always does when it rains, and the ear he can’t hear out of is ringing. The 41st division. General Bujing. His father, and his anger. The Agni Kai. And of course, the burning. It all replays in his mind like a super cut, like one of those proverbs that repeat themselves to get a point across.

He just needs the Avatar. But maybe...his crew needs him, too, to care for them, like he cared for the 41st. Something in Zuko shifts.  
-  
Azula always lies.

How could he have been so stupid? Father doesn’t let things like treason go, and apparently, that was the crime committed. His phoenix tail floats down the river, carrying away everything he once knew. Treason, is what she said. Of course Father would see it that way. All evidence points to it, and it’s not like Zuko is at the palace to explain the miscommunication.

He lays on a bed of grass and dirt, while Uncle snores away, and he cries. Silently (he learned how to cry quietly years ago), Zuko curls into a ball and shakes apart. Banishment has made him soft. How could he expect Azula do be anything other than manipulative? Ridiculous.

Weak.

Stupid.

Lucky to be born.  
-  
Being a refugee isn’t fun. It’s not like Zuko expected it to be, but he wasn’t prepared for the starving, begging, and disgust of it all. The disgust is mostly directed at himself, disgust for his weakness, and his inability to be anything other than a disappointment. To Uncle, Song, Lee, everyone. Its all he seems to be good at, really.

And now they’re on a ferry to Ba Sing Se. No matter how cheery Uncle is about it, Zuko knows it’s hard for the both of them. Lu Ten died here, protecting Uncle. It feels like his ghost is looming, looking at them with that characteristic smirk. Uncle’s eyes are dimmed with dark bags, like charcoal.

Zuko is sick of this. Apparently, so is someone else.

“Here’s the deal. I hear the captain’s eating like a king while the refugees have to feed off his scraps. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

Spirits, this guy is more dramatic than he is. And what is up with the wheat in his mouth? Or his eyebrows?

“What kind of king is he eating like?” Apparently, Uncle has joined the conversation.

“The fat, happy kind.” Uncle is practically salivating. “You want to help us liberate some food?”

Finally, some action on this stupid boat.

“I’m in.”

Jet’s smirk suggests that he might’ve wanted to think over the offer a little longer. Zuko doesn’t like smiles like that.  
-  
A lot of things happen in Ba Sing Se. Zuko liberates some food, Jet asks him to join his Freedom Fighters, Zuko politely declines, they make out in a closet, and then everything promptly turns to bison crap when Jet sees Uncle heating his tea.

This leads to Zuko throwing down with his dual dao in the lower ring of Ba Sing Se against traumatized eyebrow boy, who gets swept up by a secret police force. Zuko may have deserved that, considering the make out session that would probably have not happened if Zuko wasn’t hiding his identity.

Then Lu Ten’s birthday comes around. Zuko doesn’t really realize until Uncle takes the day off (Uncle never takes a day off when tea making is involved), and he checks the date. Upon seeing the calendar, Zuko takes a half day. He spends it in a weird state of mourning, mechanically stirring a pot of noodles while tears stream down his face.

(When Uncle comes home and sees that Zuko’s made Lu Ten’s favorites, he promptly tugs Zuko into a hug his nephew doesn’t return, and cries.)  
-  
The Avatars Bison is missing, so Zuko finds it. He wants so badly to return home. Uncle pleads with him, reminds him of the twisting aches that line every limb of his body, and Zuko breaks. He doesn't know what he wants anymore. He falls, and Uncle catches him.

When he returns to reality, he’s thirsty. Uncle tells him that he suffering from a spiritual illness. Zuko’s scar aches, but it isn’t raining. Uncle is looking at him strangely, like Grandfather used to. Zuko is too tired to interpret it.

The dreams are even stranger than the looks, twisting dragons, soldiers with their skull faceplates, the Avatar taking up his face. Something in Zuko is shifting again, inner flame stoking itself, he is burning, always burning.

Zuko is tired of being kindling for those supposed to protect him.  
-  
He’s going home. Zuko has done it, and he is going home, and as a hero. He swallows the saliva and guilt that pool in the back of his throat. Mai is as sardonic as ever, but he finds that she kisses much better than the last time he saw her.

That night, when they’re curled in bed together, they whisper. She does not love him. She does not love any men, but liking girls isn’t allowed. Her voice shakes as she tells him of her fondness for Ty Lee, and Zuko gets it, tells her so.

“I like both, but it’s still hard. Hiding who you are.”

“You’re not going to...tell anyone?”

“Of course not Mai. Do you still want to-“

“Yes. It’s safer for both of us this way.”

And so they pretend, and Zuko swirls and mixes in shades of anger and paranoia, guilt and shame building behind his eyelids, choking. He hope he has learned enough, become better enough, to never feel his father’s hands again. He can’t afford to burn again.

He sees Father. His body wants to tremble, but he refuses to let it. Father....is proud, but only because Azula lied to him. The shame, ever present, threatens to swallow him whole, but he’s home. That’s all he ever wanted, right?  
-  
He doesn’t feel Father’s hands. Instead, he gets his lightning, twisting and writhing like a muzzled pygmy puma. Good. He can redirect lightning, his father’s cruelties flowing through him and out from his fingers. It hurts, but everything concerning Father hurts.

Uncle isn’t here, but Zuko can’t dwell on it, not when he has a balloon to escape in and an Avatar to teach. He can’t even think about Mai, and how angry she must be. He leaves his nation on his own terms, this time.

It’s when he gets to the Western Air Temple that things get really difficult. How is he supposed to convince these people that he’s a good person when the Ba Sing Se and everything else, really, really, proves otherwise?

So in the end, he just wings it (“Hello, Zuko Here!” will haunt him for the rest of his life).They don’t really accept any of his offers, although the blind girl seems sympathetic. Zuko still manages to mess that up when he burns her feet. Why is he so bad at being good?

His father’s words, always creeping at the back of his mind, come in full force. Weak, stupid little weevil worm. Can’t even properly apologize, how is anyone supposed to accept him? Father tried, Uncle tried, even Katara did, and he betrayed them all. (Father doesn’t count, but when the voice takes over it’s hard to recognize the hands as anything other than love.)  
-  
He’s been tentatively accepted into the group after the fiasco that was combustion man, when the blind one approaches him. He learns her name, Toph, and is told that he owes her all the piggybacks she wants for the feet burning.

“Because of you, Sparky, I’m actually blind, so you kind of owe me.”

“But you are.....actually blind.”

“Oh spirits, am I gonna have fun with you. Now yip yip, makeshift ostrich horse!”

The looks on everyone’s faces when they arrive at dinner with Toph on his shoulders makes all the sarcastic jibes worth it.

So Toph likes him, and so does Aang, after the dragons (Zuko’s started to bend their rainbow fire and he doesn’t think he’s ever felt this light, this free, as he does when shades of teal and purple lick up his arms). Sokka and Katara still hate him, which he guesses is okay. He deserves it, after everything he’s done.

Sokka does seem to warm up to him though, when he learns they both trained with Piandao. They spar in their free time, talk about how much they hated Fat and calligraphy lessons. Sokka seems to glow when he fights, and oh, Zuko knows this feeling, knew it with Mai and Jet and Jin. He’s falling, and Uncle isn’t there to catch him this time.  
-  
(They go to Boiling Rock, and Zuko falls just a little harder. He meets Suki, who village he burned, and Chit Sang, who looks at him with heavy eyes, like he knows something Zuko doesn’t. Suki and Sokka are in love, it’s clear as day, and Zuko knows that he can never have either of them, can’t be anything other than a disappointment.

So he goes in the coolers and uses his breath of fire, and Sokka stares at him while he does it. They hear about the war prisoners, and this is a decision that Sokka has to make, but he doesn’t have to make it alone. He and Suki stand side by side, watch as Sokka decides to stay, for the very chance that the Chief will come.

Mai visits him. She’s angry, Zuko knew she would be, but underneath it is a sadness.

“I would’ve come with you” she whispers.

All he can say is sorry. It’s not enough. Mai sacrifices herself for him and it’ll never be enough, that feeble sorry, for what she did that day. He hopes that Ty Lee can make up for it.)  
-  
Hakoda is undeniably, a father. But he is also a warrior. Zuko knows warrior fathers, knows the devotion and torment they inspire, knows the first and second and third times of a hand on skin, and he knows that the warm smiles hide things wished to be unseen. Zuko is terrified.

Both Suki and Sokka give him looks on the airship, when Hakoda enters a room and he immediately retreats. Zuko knows he’s being suspicious, knows that the tension is radiating off of him, practically steaming from it, but he cant help it. It’s a response, one that protected him for years, one that minimized the amount of suffering he endured.

But...

When they land, Katara looks happier than he’s ever seen her. And Hakoda doesn’t scold her for showing affection, no, he wraps both of his children (both, not one) into his arms and hugs them. Zuko needs to go.

Toph follows him.

“Why are you afraid of Snoozle’s dad?”, she inquires, managing to seem both bored and concerned.

“I’m not scared!”

“Your rabbiroo heartbeat says otherwise.”

Zuko can’t breathe.

“Look, Sparks, I get it. He’s a dad. I’m a bit put off by him too.” Toph looks down, bangs covering her face. “I take it Shitlord wasn’t the greatest to you. My parents weren’t the nicest either.”

Oh.

She gets it. Maybe it’s not exactly the same for her, but she gets it.

“His hands are big. Calloused. I can’t stop looking at them. All I can think is, is what those hands could do to someone. They remind me of my father’s.” Zuko stutters out.

“Oh Sparky...”

And so they talk. About all the times that their hearts were rabiroos, all the times they felt like puppets in their own bodies, how they had to sneak out just to be free. And at the end of it, Zuko doesn’t feel better, but he feels less empty. Someone understands what it’s like to be hurt by your protectors.  
-  
Aang won’t stop looking at him. He’s been odd ever since that first night back from Boiling Rock, clingy, always giving Zuko compliments and paying attention during fire bending lessons. Zuko is pondering this as Aang sidles up to him during breakfast (Zuko still sits as far away from Hakoda as possible), and chatters to him the entire time.

It’s during practice that Aang finally spills the fire flakes.

“And so, when you’re doing this kata, you have to be extra careful not to-“

“Why do you never practice shirtless?”, Aang blurts. “And why do you never talk to Hakoda, or talk about yourself, or hug anyone?”

Whoa. That’s a lot to unpack.

“Kid,” Zuko starts, before realizing that this is Aang he’s talking to, and he’ll probably go into the Avatar State if he tells him anything.

“I just don’t get it? Hakoda’s really nice, and we won’t care if you don’t wear a shirt! And I really, really want to know what growing up in the Fire Nation is like! I just-“

“Kid,” Zuko interrupts, “I’m sure all of that is true. But I just want to focus on your training right now. I don’t want to talk about my me problems.”

“Oh. Well, okay. I still like you, me problems or not. You’re a really good teacher, Zuko.”

“Thanks, Aang. I’ll tell you someday, okay? Just not right now.”

They continue, Zuko explaining the Dragon Saber Kata, and Aang eventually loses focus and starts trying to wiggle out of training, which leads to him doing fifty fire fists while Zuko watches. Aang still rambles and clings to Zuko, but he does it without the strange looks.  
Zuko can’t explain. Not yet.

But he will, eventually.  
-  
Katara is terrifying. Their little life changing fired trip has put into perspective her whole shovel talk at the Western Air Temple. She hugs him though, so at least he’s in the safe zone. He tells them of his family house on Ember Island, that they’ll be safe there. Everyone agrees that an actual house with actual beds is a good place to stop.

Sozin’s Comet creeps closer. Zuko trains Aang to face the man of his nightmares on the one place he felt safe with his family. He spars with Sokka and Suki, and aches every time he sees the two of them kiss. He wants them, but he can’t have them.

Sometimes, when he’s up at night, he dreams of them. Suki, and her undying loyalty and kindness, the way she fights and tears up when she talks about her warriors. Her common sense that keeps their little group above water, her ability to command. Sokka, and that big brain that he never uses, his determination, his gentle movements, the way he crafts stories out of thin air.

He’s scared, so scared, so he drills Aang in blocking again, and again, and again until he can do the movements in his sleep. He doesn’t sleep, and when he does, all he can see are the hands that taught him how the weak are treated. He misses his father, some nights. Others, he hates him. It’s not easy, not with Uncle nowhere to be found and this child that he thinks of as his little brother being primed to kill.

His scar is aching again.  
-  
It comes to a head a week before the comet, when they’re talking crap about the Boy in the Iceberg play.

“I told you they were terrible! Every year, every single year, I’d be forced to watch their stupid version of Love Amongst Dragons. They forgot half of the lines, and you couldn’t hear the other half over all the booing!”

“Wow, Zuko, I didn’t know you were such a theater nerd.” Katara teases. “I should’ve known, you’re the most dramatic person I’ve ever met. And I’ve met Sokka.”

At this, Sokka starts pretending that he been poisoned, falling in a heap of limbs with his tongue rolling out. Suki snorts and slaps the back of his head.

Toph joins in on the teasing Zuko train, saying “You should’ve seen him when this kid told him that his scar was on the wrong side. He sounded like he was about to throw down over his little sword scar.”

His what?

Does she not know?

“Toph....the scar isn’t from a sword. It’s a burn. And it isn’t....little either.” Suki says carefully.

“Whoa, what’s the story there Sparkles?”

Zuko’s blood freezes in his veins.

“Training accident.” He’s such a bad liar.

“You know you can’t lie to me right? What really happened?” How can Toph sound so flippant about this? He feels like his chest has been torn open.

Aang sees the look on his face, and starts to interrupt, but she’s too busy pushing,

“What, did you do a move that was too complicated and it backfired?”

“No.”

“Is it an embarrassing story or something?”

“Stop.” He can’t move, can’t run.

“Why are you panicking, Sparky, what’s so bad about it?”

“BECAUSE IT WAS MY FATHER!” Oh no, he yelled, he yelled at his new sister, and he can’t breathe and oh spirits, he told them.

The campfire is silent. Nobody dares move an inch. Zuko waits for it to sink in.

“Zuko....your father gave you that?” Katara recovers first.

“Yes. And then he banished me, ordered me to find the Avatar.” Zuko can’t feel his own body.

He looks at everyone. Sokka and Suki look pissed, like they’re ready to murder someone (Zuko thinks he knows who), Katara and Toph seem devastated, and Aang...

Aang’s eyes are glowing.

Shit.

“How old, Zuko?” He mutters, deadly intent behind his words.

“Aang-“

“How old?”

“Thirteen.”

Sokka curses under his breath, and for once, nobody scolds him for his language. Suki clenches her jaw, tightly angry, like she’s pushing it down. Toph, for once, is quiet.

“He sent you. A thirteen year old child. To find me. A myth that hadn’t existed for a hundred years. He, he held you down and burned your face and didn’t atone for his actions? Is that why, Zuko? Why you were so afraid of Sokka’s father? Why you don’t tell us anything, why you act like love is so fucking conditional?”

“Yes.”

They’re crying, all of them. Zuko feels tears on his face, too.

And then Aang dives towards him and crushes Zuko in a hug, and it’s like a dam has burst, because he’s surrounded by arms, Sokka and Suki and Toph and Katara all holding him. Their faces are stony with anger, but their arms are gentle, and that makes Zuko break.

Vaguely, he hears mutters of “I’m so sorry, I love you, I’m so sorry,” over and over again.

When he has to come up for air, he finds five pairs of eyes looking at him. Aang’s aren’t glowing anymore.

“Will you tell us? If you can, that is.” Suki looks so concerned, but she kisses his forehead and Sokka follows suit. (They told him that they loved him)

“Okay. But it’s a long story, and it doesn’t start with the largest scar, but the smallest one.”

“It’s alright, Sparky, we have time.” Spirits, he loves them.

“Okay. Okay. The first time I felt the back of my father’s hand, I was five, and had failed to produce a flame one too many times...”  
\- - -

**Author's Note:**

> I love zuko sm. Formatting is a bitch.


End file.
